


Going [going, gone]

by myhomeistheshire



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Defenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: When everything is finished, Karen leaves.





	Going [going, gone]

When everything is finished, Karen leaves.

 

Not for forever. She emails Ellison to tell him she’s taking her personal days, and then she gets in her car and drives - back to the road that’s been waiting, hissing and begging for her to follow it. She drives through the parts of New York City she doesn’t usually see - she’s been stuck crawling through the gutters, and this tourist trap of bright lights and beating stimuli is a different beast entirely.

The city filters out like a dream; the further she gets into the countryside the more her body forgets where she’s been, easing into the lull of the wind, of engines, of the folk music drifting through the air. The country girl in her slides gently into the grooves of rural New York, spotting the first paint-chipped gas station on the roadside and feeling light at the nostalgia.

 

The drive isn’t familiar at first; just the I-95’s strange rhythm of small town after small town, of the tantalizing smell of sea air without a glimpse of the waves. After three hours she starts to see things she hadn’t realized she remembered; the first sighting of the Connecticut River, the decrepit gas station beside the Putney fire department; the airport that meant she was one hour from home. She drives and drives, until her gas gauge begins flirting with the _empty_ line, and she finds a lonesome rest stop to pull into. As she putters into the gas station and shuts off her engine, she’s greeted with pure and simple quiet - and it’s possibly the first time she’s heard it in years. The only noise is the occasional car racing past, the hooting of an owl, the faint humming from the flickering shop lights. As she unhooks the nozzle and begins filling her tank, the silence is cut by the insistent buzzing of her ringtone. She thinks about ignoring it - or better, tossing her phone in the ditch and leaving it here. She hasn’t driven far enough to completely tear the city out of her though, so she sighs and brings the phone to her ear.

 

“Where are you? Are you okay?” It’s Frank’s voice, gruff and angry to cover up the worry. Karen clicks the handle in place and tucks her phone into her shoulder; it’s dark and chilly, and she can feel the light of the neon sign like an unwanted beacon on her skin. “I’m fine,” she tells him, and considers leaving it at that. “I’m taking a vacation.”

“A vacation.” Frank sounds skeptical. She remembers the last time they spoke, with him looking like he’d gone through a shredder; her with her eyes welling up, nails leaving welts on her palms. _It’ll never be over with you, will it?_ she’d asked him before she left; before she got in her car and went further away than he could follow.

“A vacation,” she affirms. “Back home.”

Frank falls silent. He doesn’t know anything about her home life; Vermont Karen has stayed padlocked inside the caverns of New York Karen, never given half a chance to creep out. She wonders, sometimes, at how able she is to lie to all of them. How simple it is to avoid the truth. How desperately she wishes she had fewer deceptions inside her.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?” Frank says finally, worry coloring the tips of his voice.

“Sure,” Karen lies, “always.” And when she hits the _end call_ button, she’s left alone with the neon lights and the smell of gasoline on her hands, and roads filled with nothing, nothing, nothing.

 

She hits the cemetery at three in the morning. It’s still small, just a plot of land outside a haphazardly built church. She walks over, sits next to Kevin’s headstone. There are the bones of flowers on it; she brushes them aside as she places the lilies she brought, now wilting at the edges, onto the clipped grass. She sits there for too long, thinking about home; about her parents; about her brother. Thinks about the day she told them all she was never having kids, because she didn’t want any more of _him_ out in the world; the same day she ended up in the emergency room repeating a story about goalie practice. About how Kevin and her had sworn a blood oath, when he was twelve and she was weeks from ten - to protect each other. To keep each other safe.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry._

 

She thinks about calling Frank; how it would feel hearing his voice from where she’s sitting. It seems almost surreal, like Fagan Corners is in a different reality; like the Punisher was part of a dream she’ll wake up from any second. New York Karen doesn’t belong here, but Vermont Karen does - she feels the dichotomy growing within herself, stretching, tearing her apart.

 

She doesn’t look at the time until she sees the imaginings of light starting to manifest on the horizon; there are birds starting to chirp, and she realizes that she’s shivering from the dewdrops on her skin. It’s 5:27, according to her phone, and she brings her body back to life to stagger onto shaking feet.

 _Circles_ , Kevin would say if he were here. _Circles, Kare,_ like he did when she was falling outside of herself without realizing. But he isn’t, and she is, and so she parks her car on a highway turnout and sleeps with the seat pushed down.

 

The next day she needs to decide what she’s doing; part of her feels the almost irresistible urge to slip back into Vermont Karen’s skin and see what it’s like to never have left; to go back to the small town ways and let New York Karen’s memories become something from a storybook. But the other part of her is still screaming to leave, leave, leave, so as a compromise she drives the long way back to NYC, stopping in Syracuse, Ithica, Albany. She hits the New York skyline after three days of roadside stops; her back is sore and there are cramps running up and down her legs, but the real pain is the pang of familiarity that comes with seeing her city again. Like nothing’s changed. Like she never really left.

 

When she steps out of her car in the gravel parking lot behind her apartment building, her body screams abuse. She smells like sweat and dirt and tears, and as she grabs her bag she feels someone waiting behind her. She should pull her gun but she doesn’t, instead turning around and letting her eyes fill in what her mind already expected; Frank’s grim face, hands tucked into pockets, a hood pulled over his head.

“You should be more careful,” he says, and of course it’s now that he shows up - now that she’s the one pulling away, now that she’s the one trying to leave.

“Why bother, when you’re around?” Karen says and it falls flat, hits the pavement, puddles along her shoes. She turns and keeps walking; hears the footsteps fall into step beside her.

“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” he says in that soft but rough way he has; lips stumbling over tenderness like they’ve forgotten how not to be angry. “But I need to make sure you’re safe, Karen.”

The way he says her name - she fits her nails into the grooves on her palms, pushes until she feels a twinge - “I’ll be fine.” They’ve reached the doors, and Karen pulls out her key, unlocks it, waits.

“Where were you?” He asks, and she doesn’t reply. Can’t.

She thinks of the bottle of tequila in her cupboard, and she invites him upstairs.

 

(they get just drunk enough to forget their problems for a night; but New York Karen stays firmly in place, and she doesn’t talk about the weekend.)

 

* * *

 

Frank is trying to become someone. Not a name. Not a whisper. A person, real and whole and complete. He realizes how much he wants this after Karen leaves - after he realizes how badly the shell of his being has hurt the last person he cares about.

He goes to Curtis. He stays with him for a week, just talking. Venting. It feels good to get it all out - to have someone hold him accountable for what he’s done wrong, and to give him some sort of hope for a future.

 

He goes to visit Karen a week after she gets home; a week after their drunken night of nothingness. She’d surpassed him by almost double the alcohol, and he doesn’t think there’s much of the night she’d remember. He can only think, in startling clarity, of the words she’d stumbled over near the end; “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

 

He knocks on her door, awkwardly holding a coffee cup in his hand and one tucked into the crook of his elbow, and waits for a few moments; “it’s me,” he says, but he isn’t sure if that will encourage her to open the door or the opposite. She swings it open a few seconds later though, dressed in an oversized t-shirt and leggings that make Frank have to force his eyes upward.

“I brought a peace offering,” he says, holding out one of the cups for her to take. She looks at him for a moment, analyzing, before she takes the coffee and steps aside to let him in.

“You didn’t need this, you know,” she says as she deadbolts the door behind him. “We’re okay.”

Frank offers her a wry smile. “I’d like to be more than okay, though.” He takes a sip, watches the way she’s avoiding his gaze. “Where were you, Karen? What’s going on?”

Karen looks up at him and smiles, brilliant and open and so close to real it would have fooled him, not too long ago. “I took a road trip,” she says. “Just a vacation.”

 

[He spends the night watching her building, trying to calm the racing of his pulse by making sure she’s alright, she’s alright, she’s alright.]

 

* * *

 

 

Karen has been building herself into walls. Red brick stones are encasing her lungs, cement sealing in her fingertips. The only time she halts construction is when she drinks, tequila giving her room to expand into something resembling human; to look out at the stars and truly feel the breaking.

She has four unheard voicemails on her phone. Frank, Foggy, Matt, Frank. It’s been two months since she visited the cemetery for Matthew’s funeral, and now he’s back - like a dream. Like a nightmare. She pulls out her laptop and an old whiskey bottle Foggy had gotten her as a present, not knowing it was her father’s brand. Not knowing why that would be so awful. She drinks it from the bottle and writes a hundred words a minute, sprinkled with _taking_ and _beating_ and _going, going, gone._

 

The next morning, Frank knocks on her door.

 

She knows it’s him before she opens it; before she sees his lightning eyes and frowning lips and her favorite kind of coffee in his hand.

“You don’t have to keep bringing me these,” she says, her hands already closing around the cup. It burns her tongue when she sips, but it’s worth it - all rich and sharp and warm.

“I know,” He says, scowling like he always does before settling himself onto her couch. “Wanna tell me why there’s been radio silence the last few weeks? Or why your lawyer friend’s been walking around with that same glass-eyed look you have on?”

He knows Foggy’s name, chooses not to use it - _Frank Castle, the Punisher,_ this seems to smack in her face, so bitter and unfeeling and cold. “Matt’s back,” she replies, suddenly much more focused on her coffee. “Or, never left, I guess. Decided to finally let us know.”

“ _Shit_.” And this is Frank, just Frank, slamming his coffee down with more expletives than she’s heard in a while. “No wonder. Shit. I’m gonna knock his teeth in.”

In another time, Karen would’ve laughed. Now, she buries her head in her hands and stops her breathing with a sob.

“Hey, Karen. Shhhh. It’s gonna be okay.” Frank’s arms are warm around her, alien in their gentleness - but then, she should have known. Frank Castle to her has never been just the Punisher.

For the first time, she thinks of telling him the truth.

 

* * *

 

 

When Karen falls asleep on the couch, Frank carries her to her room. Tucks the blankets around her shoulders and lingers for just a moment too long. Everything about her is perfectly aligned - silky hair, perfect makeup, somehow-not-crumpled clothes. The ink stains beneath her nails are the only thing that betray her; messy, scrambled, fervid. Karen Page is an ocean in high heels, in a desperate attempt not to show her waves.

 

He refills the grounds in her coffeemaker and leaves a note on her counter. _Murdock’s an asshole,_ he wants to write, but that wouldn’t do justice to what he’s thinking - to the untempered fury which he feels in his throat.

 

 _See you tonight,_ is what he puts instead, and then he goes to find the Devil.

 

He finds him on a rooftop at the fringes of Hell’s Kitchen, his torso dark against the lamplit skyline.

“Why are you here?” He asks without turning around, and Frank clenches his fists. _Not the right time. Not the right reason._

“You let her think you were _dead_?” He spits out, throwing the accusation like a right hook. “For this long? What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I needed to take a step back,” Murdock replies, “I needed to remember where I stood.”

“You didn’t see her at your fucking funeral. How goddamn _dead_ she looked. You didn’t see her after - you couldn’t have let her know you needed some time off?”

Murdock doesn’t meet his gaze - finally, some of his trademarked guilt. Some goddamned honesty. “Karen didn’t want to see me.”

Frank laughs. It isn’t funny. “She wanted to know you were alive.”

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t reply, just takes a step back and prepares for running.

“You’re a piece of fucking shit,” Frank tells him, and has the satisfaction of seeing him flinch before he disappears off the building.

 

Frank goes back to Karen’s apartment, and waits on the fire escape until she gets home.

 

“You could come inside, you know,” she tells him in a half-exhasperated voice, opening the window and waiting for him to climb through. “It’s not really less creepy with you sitting out there instead.”

He smiles. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Are you just here for a visit?” She asks, plugging in her laptop and settling down in front of it. “Or are you here to plumb me for my secrets again?”

 _Not the right time. Not the right time._ “Just a visit. Wanted to see what you’re working on.”

She sighs, and he knows he hit a sore spot. “Nothing even close to anything, lately.” She hits the keys with incensed vigour. “I’ve been doing traffic pieces and op-eds and absolutely nothing that’ll put me in contact with any more bomb-inclined sociopaths.”

Frank chuckles. “Ever thought life without the grim reaper might be a bit of a nice change?”

She looks at him with a sort of hopelessness in her eyes, and he bites back his words. _Stupid, stupid._ “I’ve thought it.”

 

She doesn’t speak for another hour, instead typing and scrolling as he watches her movements.

“What’s in Vermont?” He asks her, when the sun is long gone and the cold air is drifting from the window, but he’s too caught in the stillness to care. He’s caught her off guard and her shoulders tighten as she looks over at him; long, calculating.

“A cemetery,” she says finally, and her voice catches at the end. “An old life.”

Frank chooses his next words carefully. “Have you ever considered,” he asks, “that you don’t deserve to be punished for other people’s mortality?”

Karen freezes. _Not the right time._ But it never will be. “I do when I’m the reason,” she says, and this time her voice is heart stoppingly calm. “When they’ve all been taking my place.” And then the _Karen Page_ facade crumbles in an instant, and it’s just Karen, his Karen, crumpled and breaking and small. He slides closer to her, an arm around her shoulder like deja-vu, like stopping, like he can hold her together if he stays.

“I shot one of Fisk’s men,” she says, shaking, and the pain hits him like a bullet to the chest. The familiar guilt, pounding out its rhythms. How many people has he killed, and yet here she is - drowning in the depths of one soul. Innocent Karen. Deserves-better Karen.

“You did what you needed to,” he responds, knowing its truth immediately, without a doubt, without a question. “You’re a good person, Karen.”

“I’m smallpox,” she snaps back. “I’m fucking polio. I’m - everyone I touch. Everyone I love dies.”

 

She tells him all of it over the next few hours, in broken-down memories and puzzle pieces and half-thoughts. Her brother. Daniel. Mrs. Cardenas. Ben. Matt.

 

“It started with my father,” she says at 4am, with the moon peering in through the blinds. “He started it. And he was the only one who didn’t fucking die.”

 

She’s harsh and brittle and savage, and all he can do is pull her closer and tell her softly, “they weren’t your fault.” Over and over, until her head leans onto his shoulder and the tears dry on her cheeks.

“I can’t lose anyone else,” she murmurs, long after he’d thought she’d drifted off. “Frank. I can’t lose you, too.”

He tucks his chin above her head and rubs her arm slowly, gently. “You won’t. I promise,” he tells her, and she tucks a pinky into his hand with all the confidence of the gesture; something childish and sacred and pure. “Pinky swear,” he whispers, linking his finger into hers.

 

Karen lets herself fall into sleep, gentle and cautiously slow. Frank stays awake until sunrise with the pure comfort of knowing she’s alright, she’s alright, she’s alright.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
